Questions you don’t need God’s help on?

Everybody has questions for God. Sometimes they’re silly. Sometimes they’re serious. But every now and then, you end up in a situation where you need an answer. You have to make a decision, and you can only put it off for so long. You have to choose.

I’m there now. And in one way of looking at it, making this choice isn’t a big deal. But if you consider all of the ramifications, it could have a huge impact.

The long and the short of it is that I’ve received the first concepts for the cover of my book, Nameless. And I was desperately hoping that one of them would stand out as the absolute winner … but they’re both fantastic. And now I have to pick one.

I have to pick the book cover that will represent my novel in a way that will make people want to pick it up and read it. It’s not an earth shattering decision, but it’s important because it could very well determine whether the book sells or flops.

So I’m exercising a right that I have as a follower of Christ. I’m asking for God’s opinion.

Pretty flower at the Dallas Farmer’s Market, Dallas, TX

Today’s verse is James 1:5.

If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking.

So many times I think we are afraid to ask God because bringing our daily concerns to Him seems trivial.  I mean, He’s God. He shouldn’t care about the simple, easy, picky things I’m facing in my life. He shouldn’t care about a book cover design.

But that’s a lie. He does.

God wants to be a part of our lives in every way, from the big decisions to the small ones. And we should never forget that the small decisions may seem small but they can have huge consequences, so it’s essential to ask for wisdom before you make any decision.

God invites us to ask Him for help. He wants us to. That’s part of being in a relationship of any kind. You ask questions. You ask for opinions. You ask for help. We have friends because we were never meant to go through life alone, and God wants to be an intimate part of our lives.

Now, should you ask God what color socks to put on this morning? Well, that’s up to you. It’s highly unlikely that your socks could change the course of your life, but you never know.

I’m asking God for wisdom to choose the right book cover. Not necessarily the one I like the best, but the one that is the best option for the book itself. And that’s difficult for me because I don’t care about book covers. I never look at covers when I’m deciding what book to read. I look at the titles, and I read the back cover. That’s how I choose books. So if there is anyone completely unequal to the task of choosing a book cover, it’s me.

I’m not afraid to ask for God’s help on this. I need Him. It’s the things I already know how to do that I struggle with asking about. After all, if I already know how to do it, why would I ask for God’s wisdom? And that’s pride talking. I think I know what I’m doing. I still need God’s help to actually do the right thing.

What decision are you facing today? Is it something you already have experience with or is it something you don’t know how to handle? Either way, ask for God’s wisdom. He’s invited us to ask, so we are nuts if we don’t take Him up on it. It’s like being friends with the most brilliant mathematician in the world and still struggling through your math homework alone.

Don’t let Satan’s lies convince you that your problem isn’t worth God’s time. That’s not your decision to make. You’ve been invited to ask; so ask. And don’t believe for a second that you have life handled on your own, because you don’t. Nobody does.

Just ask. Be sure about what you need to know. Trust that God will give you an answer. And then be willing to act on it, whether you think it’s the right answer or not.

Nobody said it would be easy, but so many times doing the right thing never is.

Obeying God isn’t a game of hide and seek.

Wouldn’t it be nice if God would tell us clearly what He wanted us to do? I mean, beyond the obvious. Don’t steal. Don’t lie. Don’t murder. Love Him. Love others. Those are obvious. Those are the ones we all know, whether we follow Him or not. But what about the specifics? There are millions of choices to make and thousands of methods to go about doing all of those things.  So which one do we choose?

Example? Do we leave our home and travel to a foreign land to love others? Or do we stay home and do the same thing for the people who are hurting all around us? It’s the same concept. Both are obedient. But the choice whether to stay or go has major ramifications. It’s a big deal. How do we know what to do?

The really awesome thing about God is that He doesn’t hide Himself. He never hides from us. It’s the other way around. Even from the beginning, it was Adam and Eve who hid from God after they did wrong, not God hiding from them. And if we ask Him to help us, He will. We just have to be willing to accept the answer.

Scarlet Macaw - Sedgwick County Zoo, Wichita, KS

Today’s verse is James 1:5.

If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking.

I think there’s a perception sometimes that we shouldn’t ask God for things because He’s already done too much for us. Or because He’s too busy to listen. There couldn’t be anything more untrue. God wants us to ask Him for things. He wants to give us good gifts. He wants to tell us how to live our lives, but we are rarely interested in listening.

Most of the time, I think we seek Him and seek the path He has planned for us and then, when He answers us, we get scared or full of insecurity and doubt and we shut Him out and convince ourselves that He didn’t really answer us. After all, surely He couldn’t be asking us to do something that is so dangerous or so out of the box! Right?

I know I’ve had this argument with myself many times. I get lost and confused and turned around. I worry and I stress, and I’m at the end of my rope. So I ask God for help (I should have asked for help first before worry and stress set in) and God answers me. But the answer He gives me is something I don’t want to hear. It’s an answer that pushes me beyond what I’m comfortable doing. It’s an answer that requires me to trust Him on a level I haven’t experienced before. So what do I do?

I tell myself I heard Him wrong. I tell myself that I am making up crazy ideas and I go about my day, wondering why God isn’t showing Himself to me. Sound familiar to anyone else?

God wants us to ask Him questions. He’s a wealth of knowledge and information and He loves us so very much. We have access to the Creator of the Universe. We can speak to Him like He’s our Daddy, but many of us don’t because we think He doesn’t want to hear from us. And the rest of us are so petrified by doubt and insecurity, we don’t do what He tells us to do.

Sometimes we have big decisions to make. Other times, our decisions aren’t so big but we still need help making up our minds, especially if the choices we have are both good. God wants to help us make that choice. There are so many ways He speaks to us, through His Word, through other believers, even through nature. He cares about the decisions we make. But He can only do so much for us if we refuse to listen.